Time for Some Moral Guidelines for the Press

All good people with common sense want to do something to prevent future tragedies like that which occurred in Newtown, Connecticut. What one newspaper in Westchester County, New York did was not good, nor was it sensible.
What the Journal News did by publishing the names of gun permit holders in its Westchester and Rockland papers is legal under the First Amendment provision of the Constitution, but it was at the very least an ethical violation of people's right to privacy. Those gun owners registered with their government, as they're required to do, yet didn't expect to have their names and addresses published in a local paper for all to see.
A statement from the Journal News stated that the staff knew that publishing of the info would be controversial, "but we felt sharing info about gun permits in our area was important in the aftermath of the Newtown shooting." Really? I'd like to know what logic was involved in that conclusion. A mentally...(Read Full Article)